NYU HPC Setup

This is a guide for logging into the NYU HPC cluster and streamlining that process.

• The usual way to access the NYU Greene HPC cluster is via SSH. This information is taken from the official NYU HPC website.

  • Simply open a terminal (Linux, Mac) or the Command Prompt (Windows 10) and enter the commands:

    ssh <netid>@greene.hpc.nyu.edu ## you can skip this step if you  are on the NYU Network or using the NYU VPN
    ssh <netid>@greene.hpc.nyu.edu
    

    where <netid> is your NYU NetID. You will be prompted for your NYU NetID password. Enter it and you will be logged into the login node.

• SSH keys can be set up as follows so that you don’t have to enter your password every time:

• On your local machine, generate a public/private key pair by running the command ssh-keygen -t rsa in a terminal. You will be prompted for a location to save the key pair. The default location is ~/.ssh/id_rsa and ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub for the private and public keys, respectively. You can just press enter to accept the default location.

• Copy the public key to the login node by running the command ssh-copy-id <netid>@login.greene.hpc.nyu.edu. You will be prompted for your password. Enter it and the public key will be copied to the login node.

• Now you can log into the login node without entering your password by running the command ssh <netid>@login.greene.hpc.nyu.edu.

• As a final step, you can add the following lines to your ~/.ssh/config file to make logging in easier:

  # Host for ssh'ing into the Greene cluster when on the NYU network
  Host greene
    HostName greene.hpc.nyu.edu
    User <netid>
  
  # Host for 'tunneling' into the hpc when logging in from outside of the NYU network (i.e. at home)
  Host hpcgwtunnel
    HostName gw.hpc.nyu.edu
    ForwardX11 no
    LocalForward 8025 greene.hpc.nyu.edu:22
    User <netid>
  
  # Host for sshing into the greene cluster when tunneled in from outside of the NYU network (i.e. at home)
  Host greenetunnel
    HostName localhost
    Port 8025
    ForwardX11 yes
    User <netid>
  

Note: In Windows 10, the ~/.ssh/config file is located at C:\Users\<username>\.ssh\config.

Now you can log into the login node by simply running the command ssh greene.